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Friday, June 8, 2012

Shame and justification (part 1)

A narcissist reader and I have been discussing the role of shame and justification as a motivator for narcissists and sociopaths. Here's his perspective on shame (next post mine):

I think it all comes down to shame and putting up appearances.If I don't feel shame, and if I don't feel the need to put up appearances so that I can feel good about myself, I'm left just trying to do the things that I want to do, for my own reasons.As soon as I realized how driven by shame and putting up appearances I've been, it hit me that if I stopped doing that, I would have a tremendous amount of time on my hands. And I'd have a lot of flexibility, because there just isn't that much stuff I genuinely want.However, when pursuing my own interests, I'm liable to act selfishly and immorally. That's just what comes naturally.One thing: I'm not a good liar. When I've lied well in the past, it required deceiving myself. The less I delude myself, the harder it is to lie.I think the key is to become comfortable with shame and with perceiving of myself as a "bad" person. To the extent I can do that, I seem to just act selfishly and without conscience.

122 comments:

When you are obsessed with a word or an image, you keep listening to it or seeing it everywhere. When you come to SW you seem to be doomed to look at the world from a single point of view, no matter what aspect of it you take under consideration. Sociopathworld is the world itself. The irrelevant outside remainder is a mere handful of unconcerned individuals capable of empathy, having no idea what’s about to go down on them and whose main function is to be ensnared and subdued by sociopaths. All human activities are encompassed in Sociopathworld. Whatever your pursuit, whatever your interests, activities or problems are, you can solve them much better if you admit you are sociopath. Starting here, you can later go down into detail and rectify your reality. After gaining full consciousness that you are a born sociopath you shouldn’t need to worry about moral rules of conduct anymore, but surprisingly SW offers you a rich array of instructions and subtle considerations you should follow if you want to be a stylish sociopath, it even hints that religion could be a possibly good choice, which in fact brings you back to the starting point, that distant time before you had ever thought you could be a sociopath. Main religions say all men were created by god and are basically equal; this should be called pure nonsense from a sociopath point of view; but this is, nonetheless, only a make believe dichotomy: if sociopaths should reach the power within religious organisations they would never touch their principle system, because it’s evident all men have been effectively created by just one god, and this god, let’s say it once and for all, is a sociopath.

Oh, and you sound like girl who's jealous of a prettier girl, and has become bitter and resentful. You seem to buy the idea that sociopaths are indeed better than you, otherwise you wouldn't have to argue yourself out of that feeling of yours. And yell at a website as if it's a person! Who does that? If you didn't feel threatened you wouldn't feel the need for all these lectures.

But what is really idiotic about your comment, is that if you've been paying any attention at all, you'd notice that the number one thing us regulars do, the ones you hate the most, is let the majority of people who come in here thinking they are sociopaths know that they are full of shit, because they usually are. For many of the reasons you just listed. Those are the ones we love to devour -- people who bullshit themselves like that. Doesn't even have to be bullshit about whether they are a sociopath or not... any kind of self-deception is the life-blood here. Narcissists will get the worst treatment.

People either whither away by being faced with their own bullshit, and continue to believe their own bullshit out of pride until they self-destruct and decompensate, as you have been doing for a while now, or they own it, face it, become smarter, less pathetic, or at least consider what is being said and ask questions.

I don't recall you ever, ever, ever asking anyone here a serious question, nor have you ever displayed any sort of curiosity. It's obvious to everyone you didn't come here to learn anything about yourself or sociopaths, you just came here for your own ego.

Someone's gonna fuck with you again in your real life if you keep up this pride bullshit; I can guarantee you that. You've got some massive blindspots of your own making.

Jose, some of your sentences are good, but the point is wrong. Seriously, I can't understand why one would try to believe that s/he is a sociopath? I don't really understand that idea, that if you realise that you are a sociopath, you start to act like one. If you acted differently before, you aren't one and then you have no reason to think that you are a sociopath :/

Medusa you think Javier sounds like he's yelling at a blog post? I don't feel that. Anyway just because a person might do that what is the big deal. YOu're talking with people who got lots of rage going on here and about his. You're complaining people yell at a blog post? Ever hear of redirected rage? DOgs do that all day. Even the twitter said it the other day. I am a bit surprised at you. And who gives a fuck he lectures. You do it all the time but with fewer words.

Yes anon. What I mean is that all his comments are generally directed. I'm sure you've noticed he never talks to or about any individual, even whilst calling someone by name. He only ever references or speaks to people as they belong to a group, or represent a group. For someone so against labels, he seems like someone who can only see people as labels and never as people. When he responds to UKan or myself or whoever, he's never responding to us as individuals, or the actual content of what we are saying, but instead responds to us merely as representatives of some sort of group he's made up in his head that he's decided we both belong to. He's talking to sociopaths as a whole, not this sociopath or that sociopath. Or this person or that person. Always.

So in effect, yes, he's yelling at a blog, not the people on it, not the person writing it, and not the content of it. The entire existence of the blog is enough for him to justify his weird rants.

Sorry, couldn't let this one pass: "because it’s evident all men have been effectively created by just one god,"

No, it's not evident. If it were there would be no need for faith.

"and this god, let’s say it once and for all, is a sociopath."

God has no body and therefore no feelings (and consequently no affect)(and no, love is not a feeling but an attitude and an action). However, at least according to Christianity and contemporary Judaism, God is consistent, has long range goals, and unconditionally wills the best for people. Hence, not a sociopath.

So what? There are criteria people meet for certain groups of similar personality types here.

What is the point of doing individual attention? Not a lot of people talk the details differentiating themselves. We are private.

More to the point, you're private. Would you prefer him to conjure up the details of your life and then tailor make his rants for you? Or for any other person. I wouldn't want to give details over some blog. That's crazy. (I should know. I did it once and then I decided to do my anonymous thing.) I ain't giving a goddamned inch more. Go to the forum and see what happens when people give personal details.

You are some manipulative person, destroying people and then complaining people don't ask for details. You trying to get people to expose themselves through Jose so you can get off or write your little stories?

Years back, Sociopathworld chewed me up and spat me out like the obnoxious cunt that I was. Couldn't have asked for a better ending. Forced me to accept that I was immoral and destructive not because I was a sociopath, but because I was fundamentally 'broken,' self-loathing, and searching for anything to give me back some sense of control and worth.

Never an easy pill to swallow, but it's the only one that can actually cure the disease. It is a shame that more do not find it.

It strikes me that tomorrow's post will make the point of today's clear. I lived with a diagnosed narcissist for a long time and would have sworn that he was a sociopath. These couple of posts will help those of us who are neither understand both better.

"#10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth merely because they say it! Charles Manson, the sociopathic murderer, is famous for saying, "I've never killed anyone! I don't need to kill anyone! I THINK it! I have it HERE! (Pointing to his temple.) I don't need to live in this physical realm..."

What idiot wrote that? Everything Manson said here was true. He got other people to do the work, by using his brain. Nothing magical about that.

Just my 50 cents to this.1 - agree, I always wondered why people like me2 - true, whatever to keep me out of boredom3 - yep, but I (we?!) sometimes am mercyful if I think I should act like that or if it suits my needs4 - maybe5 - don't agree with this. I believe that sometimes loosing is better than winning6 - maybe, but there has to be some idiots among them7 - yep, but they can adore something, like someone like an object (if someone's looks, act adores you very much, you can 'love' that person)8 - yep, people said me, that I am a good storyteller9 - most of the time, but sometimes I pretend to apologise, but sadly, yeah, most of the time I go on attack, how about others?10- not sure, I think that I am not delusional and understand when I lie and when I don't, but how can *I* know...

Elicious, you really think that I am an aspie? Wow, what should I do now?! Seriously :(And you must be a very smart woman to diagnose me so quick and accurate by reading few comments, so please, please, help me, my world is falling apart! ;(

I know, I know, but I really think that that woman is right about me, so I'll call my aspie friend, who is nothing like me, so I could tell that friend about this discovery and we could celebrate!I don't know, what would I do without Elicious!

I have frequently wondered if sociopathworld could be a tool or an instrument for a further finality beyond the mere social contact among purported sociopaths. I can’t be a judge on this, but I have a penchant for investigation, and by enquiring I have found quite a few interesting possibilities. SW can create a state of opinion among people who are at odds with their families, their jobs or their hometowns. It can give people with little control on themselves, with lousy lives, with few prospects, a feeling of justification and a hope of improvement “if I become a sociopath I could be entitled to medical attention, if no other” they may think. In this way, SW could be striving, consciously or not, as a social worker for the general improvement of mankind. I don’t think that must have forcibly to do with secret empathy disguised as sociopathy, I rather think it could be a sly, or, as they say here, a sociopathic way of deriving a holy result from unorthodox methods.

Could SW serve some higher purpose than as an alleged social networking site for sociopaths? Perhaps as a voice for all of us? For who of us does not suffer from some inner turmoil, whether with family, work or the community? Or with the self?

Could SW be a place created for all and any to regroup and rekindle hope? An unfriendly friendly place where all can unite in the common struggle to make sense of existence, share our war stories, and feel less alone? If I am a sociopath, I am one of many.”

Of course it can.

SW is our unlikely therapist. Whether driven by some secret empathic agenda or simply by a perverse pleasure in the employing of unorthodox means to achieve a holy end, SW is ours.

I think you should turn this into serious humor and manipulate him like a socio would do. Start writing back in your own words but pretty much appreciating and agreeing with everything he says. See what happens.

I see the PD as literal cement, to the personality. The personality has lost it's fluidity. It is frozen in some way. The manner in which it is frozen is the PD. It could be co-dependency, ASPD or BPD. However, there is a narrow lens with which one sees the world. There is a narrow lens to how one experiences the world. One is stuck, by virtue of the cement like nature of the PD.

The person has to want to heal their PD, first of all. Then, the person must be willing to walk through fire, as the PD was constructed on pain so bad that it would have killed the person, literally.This level of pain will discharge as the PD heals. Can we say pain at the level of a motherfucker?

As the PD falls down(or off), one can see the ideas/constructs which made up the PD. Today, I see the black and white thinking.

The black and white thinking is a strange phenomena like an alien in a zoo of earth creatures. The black and white thinking is more immature than the youngest child. It is a freezing of the perceptual process into a narrow hole, such that the person is looking at life through a virtual peephole.

Black and white thinking is VERY literal, as if one is dealing with a retarded person. The thinking capacity and resultant emotional capacity is virtually retarded.

The black and white thinking will be unknown to you, until you see it. I suppose this is a strange paradox, but most aspects of PD's are strange paradoxes. The person with a PD is a sort of mutant( not meant as a judgement, per se) However, it is the case. The person is walking around with a permanent disability, as was seen by yesterdays article. The person was frozen in an emotional/perceptual stance.

That exemplifies what I mean by a PD. That poor soul, in yesterday's article, had a severe case, but anyone with a PD is frozen, albeit in a less severe manner.

I see it a bunch in how I talk to friends, HTHAPD. They seem to think I categorize things in piles. I'm sure it isn't easy for them to talk to me. But i do make a lot of sense! I do the well if it's this it is surely that, and if it's that it is that. I'm not all knowing. I don't know shit. The grey areas are hard but I'm getting better. It's when it's personal I need to have serious conversations with myself and then throw it all out the window. After I've thrown it all out the window I've let go and really no more anxiety. It is practice. I think there is danger here for me. Somehow I think getting rid of the black and white thinking will excuse me from taking a stance. But I will be alright. So much balance is needed.

I like to give people justifications to do something they feel is wrong and slowly drag them over their bounderies. A while back on this blog I used to say I was a club manager, which was a half truth. I actually had corrupted all the people in charge of the club and slowly dragged the owner, the manager, and security into my own little world.

Towards the end I brought in my own man to "help out" with security problems. Of course, besides a few scuffles here and there, there really wasn't too many problems. The real problem for me was that low life rookies looking to get high for free were undercutting me since they had no interest in making a profit. The regulars at the club would point out the person hustling to me and my associate and myself would approach him or her and warn them about selling in there. If they didnt listen we would drag them out back and beat on them and rob them for everything.

The actual security guard was soft. A big tall softy. I had asked him to do the job initially but he thought it was wrong. It should be a free market he said. The owner thought the same. I was being unfair.

In my mind I was there first. I made this place happen. People were all fucked up and havibg a good time because of me. When I came in the club there was 15 people moping around the whole night it was dead. Now there was hundreds. There were half naked woman running across the street to get in line. People were fucking in the back in front if everyone. They had people so fucked up they were falling off the second story. It was anarchy. This was my perspective but of course they wouldn't listen to that.

One day someone sold some bad drugs. I let it go around. The owner told me about it and I told him thats what happends when you have a free market. People get sick. People get hurt. The party is ruined for everyone just because some fiend wanted to play dealer and ripped everyone off so they could go home and get high. Better to have a professional like me that is personally vested in the club be responsible for distribution than to leave it open to people you don't know.

As soon as he said he gave me a half way ok I made a truce with a local gang across the way that sold a different drug than me and we setup shop. When people came in trying to push we would drag them out in the alleyway and roll them. The softy security guard finally joined in, because now he felt justified by protecting the club members from bad drugs.

You might be able to get in shape, and things, but you still, even then, might be ugly. Clothes can't hide it, and it can be seen even with nice clothes and make-up. You only chance it to lose the huge ass.

Isn't ironic how the American constitution wants people to be armed to defend their rights from the government and each other, many Americans believe this but yet they will not let people in other counties have arms. For many people in the countries he sold arms to, they can't buy arms from their government (oppressors), if they want to defend them selves they have to go to the private arms dealers. So rather than viewing this guy as a hero the same people who's governments are selling billions of arms their business partners (other governments), condemn him as evil. Who is evil? The evil person will always have a gun regardless of the law, and they are usually the people in charge of the government. There is simply no way for most people to free them selves from slavery than buying guns from private arms dealers.

On a different perspective, he brought he guns, those are his property. The purchaser has the money which is his property. And they simply exchanged properties. Both parties were not physically forced into the deal and both gained more value. How can that ever be immoral? Again the same people who claim to want to save lives wants to take away people's property rights. I guarantee you that your right to life is meaningless without your right to property. A slave is someone who owns no property but lives to work for the property of others.

I think he is a business hero, freedom promoter and everyman. He is just like you and I, trying to survive in the world by doing what we do best. The only reason i can see why he is arrested is because our governments want to get rid of the competition.

Freedom fighter is a stretch. He supplied charles taylor with weapons. You could hardly call that the act of a freedom fighter. Bout was a businessman. The crimes he's accused of america has done a hundred fold

Nobody liked me at first, like in high school for example. I hung out with the popular crowd. It was a natural thing, really, due to my delicious brown sexiness and charisma, I was more or less accepted. I also hung out with some odd folks who smoked funny herbs and ingested mind altering concoctions and so on, because I was tragically curious. The hippies in those days offered slightly better conversation. Only slightly though. I belonged to two groups, but I was an outsider in both of them. I failed to connect with anyone because I didn't quite concern myself in what anyone else was thinking or feeling, often too busy pursuing the basics (sex, drugs)to even consider reciprocating friendly gestures to these apes I couldn't care less for. I had a few friends who I enjoyed, others who I tolerated (as there were many who only tolerated me) but all in all, I didn't usually go out of my way to socialize with anyone, if it wasn't for drugs, or because I wanted to fuck them. Thank the Lord I have matured, by the grace of GOD ALMIGHTY!

Are you saying that you feel shame M.E.?That doesn't sound very Sociopathic.

I agree that lying very well or even adapting to an environment well does take, I don't know if I would call it self deception, but more an "immersion" into a view or position, to the point you are the thing or the lie is the truth, but that is not really self deceiving/deception, it is an effective adaptation strategy that one would be aware of unless one were insane.

I imagine the cognitive behaviorial therapists would say that tying any one thing to the value you give yourself, whether it is a "good" or "bad" thing you do or that happens to you is a mistake.

You here are some of the biggest faggots around. So fucked up. You just dont get that it is not a good thing to feel delight in hurting the genuinely underserving. The other ways you feel have no importance, because the above is the main point you're fucked up on.

I guess you found the shoe to fit now didn't you?Your language is one of a foul mouthed bully. You are the kind that doesn't handle short crisp punches very well. How do you know how others think? I think you are a homosexual deep down that doesn't accept himself.

It's not a hangup they have dummy. You, and perhaps others, have the hangup or issue about it. For them it is part of the way they are. It is a true expression that perhaps they mask or hide. And perhaps one could argue that they do "care" for people, just differently then non S types.

I mean as has been discussed here before by apparent S/P types in how they may regard people as possessions or as things/persons important to them, as short term or perhaps longer term obsessions (very stimulating relationships due to persons character or the interaction with person or combo etc), shallower type feelings etc.

I've got evil in me as much as anyone, some desires that scare me. Even if I don't give in to them, just having them scares the living bejesus out of me sometimes. I am no saint, the way you kid about. But I've always walked the line, walked that goddamned line. It's a mean mother of a line, straight and narrow, sharp as a razor, cuts right into you when you when you walk it long enough. You're always bleeding on that line, and sometimes you wonder why you don't just step off and walk in the cool grass.

I look at SW as a site/blog where you can sometimes find some interesting people to converse with, at least sometimes, about some pretty interesting things. The atmosphere here can be pretty negative and aggressive and maybe even depressing but I think there also can be moments of real insight brought about. Plus it's run by a sociopath and appears to have some S/P types as members participating lending it all a sense of danger, excitement, and also the cold, logical, and sometimes manipulative socipathic/psychopathic viewpoint and analysis of various stuff that comes up. A quite unique site at the very least in my view.

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Of course, my default is still to intuitively analyze every outcome and situation and achieve the best result, but it's more interesting to let people remain a variable and go in their own direction, rather than nudging them in the direction I prefer. Interacting with people WITHOUT trying to control them is a new paradigm for me.